


Just an old sweet song

by JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Jack's POV, Jack's thought process, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 15:07:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12986652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle/pseuds/JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle
Summary: Jack hates the way Bittle draws all the attention, until he realizes that everyone paying attention to Bittle gives Jack more room to be himself, and then realizes that maybe he was paying more attention to Bitty than anyone else anyway. But no matter what, Bitty should be allowed to be who he is.





	Just an old sweet song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flaming muse (flaming_muse)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/gifts).



> I was struck by the thought for this after I read [First Skate](http://http://archiveofourown.org/works/12881025) by flaming_muse. One of the reasons Jack finds it so easy to spend time with Bitty is because when he does, no one is focusing on Jack.   
> It's probably a load of self-indulgent nonsense, but I had fun with it! Even though, of course, I own nothing.

Fall 2013

Jack shook his head again.

What was it with that kid, Bittle? Bringing a pie to the first team meeting? Fainting at practice when someone just barely touched him? And what was with the rest of the team? Ransom and Holster were acting like he was the younger brother they never had, and Shitty had all but adopted him.

Shitty had barged into Jack’s room through their shared bathroom and accused him -- accused _him_ \-- of being too hard on the kid. This was after Jack woke up at 4 a.m. three times a week just to make it possible for Bittle to take the ice as a member of the team. What did Shitty want from him? He was doing his best. It wasn't like if this team fell flat on its face anyone was going to blame Bittle.

Did Shitty want Jack to embrace Bittle and act like he was an asset to the team? When he was so scared of being hit he couldn’t even keep his eyes open to shoot? Sure, the puck went in, but it was a lucky shot. It was.

But now Bittle had won over more than the team; Jack’s father was a fan.

A “clutch shot”? Really, Papa? 

Jack knew Bad Bob and his enthusiasms. Now he would have to hear Shitty’s odes to Bittle’s pies, Ransom and Holster trying to figure out what date would be good enough for him, and his own father, probably extolling the benefits of figure skating training for hockey skaters. Not that Bad Bob had ever in his life worn figure skates, to the best of Jack’s knowledge.

“I just want him to take the game seriously,” Jack told Shitty. “This is important.”

“Jackabelle,” Shitty had said. “Canadian hockey Adonis. It’s a game. Why can’t you see he’s a fucking ray of sunshine? And if that’s not enough, he’s fast as fuck and none of the other teams expect it?”

Spring 2014

Shit. Shits was right. Bittle was really fast, and while other teams were trying to catch up to the red-and-white blur that was No. 15, Jack could get into position and be ready to catch the passes that Bittle threw to him.

When Bittle drew all eyes to him, Jack scored, and each tally brought him one step closer to his goal. One step closer to claiming a place on an NHL team, a chance to play for the cup, to write his own hockey legacy.

Almost as important, Bittle was paying attention to the game, to the way it should be played. He’d practiced checking with Jack without complaint, he kept his head up, and he listened to Jack. 

Jack was pleased.

Until it all fell to pieces.

Jack thought it would be fine. It had always been fine before, when they ran that play. Sure, Bittle would draw the D behind the net -- that was the point of the play, to get them to clear out from the front of the goal, leaving Jack one-on-one with the goalie, whose head would have to be on a swivel to track the puck. 

But once Bittle passed to Jack, the D should follow the puck. Bittle should be safe.

Jack didn’t count on a late hit that would send Bittle airborne. He didn’t count on Bittle crashing down, his head bouncing on the ice as his helmet skidded away.

Once again, all eyes were on Bittle as he struggled to his feet and skated off.

Jack didn’t need to see the trainer run the concussion protocol to know that Bittle was done for the foreseeable future, most likely the rest of the season.

So much for using him to distract their opponents.

But of course Bittle deserved the Carlisle. He did his job, he drew the attention, and he paid the price.

Shitty agreed, Jack knew. When they discussed it, Shitty said, “Yeah, brah. And don’t forget, he does it all with pie and a smile.”

Fall 2014

Jack thought he'd gotten to know Bittle pretty well during Bittle’s frog year -- better than he'd gotten to know the other frogs in that class, at least. Part of it was the way the older team members had adopted Bittle, part of it was the way Bittle had taken up residence in the Haus kitchen, and part of it was all the time Jack spent with Bittle to help him learn to take a check.

But nothing prepared him for the reality of living across the hall from Bittle. From the day Jack returned to campus and was greeted by Bittle in a pair of shorts that barely deserved the name, to the near constant scents of butter and sugar as Bittle tried to single-handedly ruin the entire team’s nutrition plans, to the strong tenor belting out pop songs at 8 o’clock on Sunday morning, the one day of the week Jack could sleep in, Bittle’s presence was everywhere.

That might have been why Jack was so shocked when he heard that Hall and Murray were thinking of taking Bittle off the roster. Sure, he'd noticed that Bittle wasn't quite up to his level from the end of last season, but he hadn't even been cleared to skate until just before practice started. And of course he'd noticed Bittle collapsing on the ice, but it was better. It was only twice the first week, not twice the first day.

Still, it got the new frogs looking at Bittle, and not in a good way. Jack had never had to fight for ice time, not at any level of hockey he'd played. But he knew that on most teams, the competition between the players was almost as fierce as the competition with their opponents. As a captain, he had welcomed that; the harder the guys fought, the better players they would become.

Bittle was still the fastest skater on the team, on pretty much any team they would be facing, and Jack wanted him on his wing. So if he had to start 4 a.m. checking sessions again, that's what he would have to do. 

Ending up in Women, Food and American Culture with Bittle meant they left team breakfast together as well as arrived together three days a week. Jack couldn't say he was impressed with Bittle’s study habits, but he seemed to get at least the food part of the material with no effort.

Jack knew he shouldn't have worried about Bittle and the frogs. By Hazeapalooza, Bittle had them thoroughly won over, and none of them seemed surprised by his offers of sweaters and pie. Jack surprised himself by how much he enjoyed being “hazed” by Bittle and Shitty. It wasn’t really an initiation for him. For him, it felt like an acknowledgement from the team that he could be one of them. In spite of everything.

Jack found himself fitting into a team better than he ever had, even in juniors, when he and Kent had more or less closed everyone else out. No one else had their talent, no one else had their work ethic, no one else was going to be drafted, at least not in the first round.

This team was less talented, and had to balance their hockey with classwork to prepare for real lives that wouldn’t be focused on the game. No one on the team as yet had been drafted at all, although Jack thought each crop of frogs got closer to the mark. And yet, for the first time, Jack felt like he had friends, guys who liked him no matter how he did on the ice, who saw him as a person first, not just their best chance to improve their game and get noticed and make it further than they could on their own.

It was that sense of belonging that led Jack to stay downstairs during Epikegster. Well, that, and Bittle asked him to stay. Jack might be the captain, but he was coming to see Bittle as the center of the team, whether he was belting out Beyonce lyrics (and yes, Jack could recognize at least a half-dozen Beyonce songs by now), spinning around defensemen or baking his teammates’ favorites. It was no wonder Jack felt his attention drawn to him, no wonder that he looked happy in the selfie they took together.

Then Kent showed up, sucking up all the attention in the room, and the air from Jack’s lungs. Jack tried to escape upstairs, but Kent followed him, and it took less than five minutes for Jack to be right back where he had been, having to work to remember who he was now, where he was now.

When he finally got Kent to leave, Bittle was there. Bittle, who usually had everyone looking at him, was looking at Jack and seeing him in all his weakness for the first time.

Spring 2015

Jack wasn’t sure how to get back onto the easy footing he had shared with the team when he returned after the holidays. He didn’t think Bittle would have told anyone what he had seen and heard, but what if he had? Or what if Kent’s appearance had done enough to remind everyone of who he was, what he had done?

This time, instead of arriving to Bittle in tiny shorts and a tan that looked like it covered his whole body, he walked in the Haus to see Bittle and Ransom doing squats to music. This time, it was cold outside, cold enough for pond hockey, and if Jack wanted to take everyone’s mind off what happened before break, he had only to invite them to play in the ice and snow.

Bittle was the only person who seemed to remember what happened before break. He accepted Jack’s assurances that all was well, then once again stole the attention by executing some kind of figure-skating jump on the rough outdoor ice -- in hockey skates and full pads, no less.

The grin on Bittle’s face rivaled the January sun breaking through the clouds and Jack basked in it.

After that, it only seemed natural to enroll in Bittle’s food science class, and if the pictures Jack shot for his photography class tended to feature Bittle more than anyone else, well. He was photogenic, and usually doing something that wasn’t MarioKart.

Jack started bringing his laptop and thesis notes to the kitchen table in the afternoons and evenings, when Bittle would feed the boys samples of whatever he was working on while pretending to do classwork. Jack didn’t think it was strange that he was developing new study habits as a senior; Shitty was almost always down there too, as was Lardo, even though she didn’t live in the Haus. Rans still preferred the library when he had an exam coming up, but otherwise, he and Holster also pulled up chairs in the kitchen.

The thing was, all this camaraderie and togetherness was binding the team more tightly together than ever, and they were playing by far the best hockey of Jack’s college career. They were doing it despite more pie than was strictly healthy, a freshman goalie and a new D pairing that was at each other’s throats when they weren’t reading each other’s minds on the ice.

Maybe Bittle’s good grace about being stuffed into a hockey bag before any game was what did it. Bittle said he had to go along with the superstition and do it for luck since he still couldn’t grow truly visible facial hair.

SMH didn’t so much slide into playoffs as charge into them, and Jack knew that however the season ended, he had a good seven or eight NHL teams interested.

He couldn’t sign anywhere until the college season was over, but he was pleased that he would have choices.

When the season ended with Samwell coming in second, Jack felt the letdown, felt that he was a letdown, but it didn’t last. Soon, he understood that the real loss was this team that had accepted him as their own. Graduation was rushing up to meet him, and Jack wasn’t ready.

Sure, his thesis was done, and he’d made his decision and signed with Providence. Not just because it was only 45 minutes away from Samwell, but the easy distance was a point in its favor.

No, Jack didn’t want to leave this team behind. He finally understood what his father meant about the best teams being like families. It didn’t happen very often, Papa said, but when it did, it was something you wanted to hold onto. When he was younger, Jack thought the best teams were the ones that won championships. That hadn’t happened for Samwell, but it was still the best team he’d ever been on.

Of course he would do whatever he could to keep that going, even if he was moving on. A new stove for Bittle was a small price to pay for the continued comfort of the Haus and its inhabitants. He made sure Ransom and Holster knew they could contact him for advice whenever necessary, and promised himself that he would keep in touch with Shitty.

When it came time to kiss the ice and then keep vigil on Faber’s roof, he saw the way Bittle was curled in on himself, hugging his knees. Bittle had grown so much, but he was still a Georgia boy, Jack thought, taking off his own jacket and draping it around Bittle’s shoulders. When he tugged Bittle closer, the better to stave off the cold, Bittle leaned into him, and Jack felt the warmth they shared spread through him.

He really should have known then. He shouldn’t have been surprised at the vague sense of unease after graduation, after saying goodbye to his friends. Papa had always liked Bittle, but still, shouldn’t Jack have realized before his father? Had he been so busy looking at Bittle he forgot to look at his own feelings?

All Jack knew was that when he found Bitty crying in Jack’s old room, the only thing he could do was kiss him.

Summer 2015

Jack was scanning the baggage claim area as soon as he got past the security gates. Hartsfield was busy, but Bitty was always easy to find. He was easily the most luminous person in any group.

But not here, apparently. Jack’s eyes had passed right over Bitty leaning against a pillar near Jack’s baggage carousel. He was dressed in faded khaki shorts and blue polo shirt, tan deck shoes on his feet and his phone in his hand.

He was just as beautiful as Jack remembered. His hair was maybe a touch blonder, and his skin a shade darker -- he’d spent some of the last six weeks in the sun, then. His smile when he looked up and saw Jack staring was just as warm. But somehow, he seemed to blend in to the background more.

It wasn’t that the other people in Georgia were as radiant as Bitty was. It didn’t take Jack long to figure that out. No, they were all unfailingly polite, in that way Bitty was with people he didn’t know well. Or the ones he knew and didn’t like much. 

Everyone was very hospitable, as well, from Bitty’s parents and relatives to the clerks in the stores and the other people at the community picnic. They all wanted to know if Jack had everything he needed, if he was enjoying himself, if they could do anything to make his visit more comfortable.

Jack wanted to tell them they could leave him and Bitty alone, let him hold Bitty’s hand, let him soak up Bitty’s warmth and count every freckle on his face.

He didn’t think Bitty would mind that he wanted to do those things. But the way Bitty held himself -- always a hard six inches between himself and Jack whenever there was a chance anyone would see -- and looked at him -- or rather, didn’t look at him, not like he did at Samwell -- made it clear that Bitty didn’t think that would be a good idea.

If it wasn’t for the way Bitty burrowed into his arms as soon as his parents’ bedroom door closed for the night, Jack might have worried that Bitty’s feelings had changed.

That first night, Jack tried to bring it up. He knew Bitty made the pie they had for dessert as soon as he saw it, but no one exclaimed over it, no one thanked Bitty for the effort he’d made. When Jack did, Bitty just blushed and looked at his plate. Coach made a sound that might have been a snort, and Bitty’s mother just said softly, “Yes, everyone likes Dicky’s pies. They always sell out when the church has a bake sale.”

“I bet you’ve never baked a pie, have you, Jack?” Coach asked, as if a lack of baking experience was something to be proud of.

“Actually, I have,” Jack said. “Eric helped me bake a pie for a final project last fall. He was an excellent teacher.”

After that, the conversation dropped, and Jack wanted to know why.

“How come you didn’t talk about your baking at dinner?” he asked.

“No one wants to hear it,” Bitty said, his face still pressed to Jack’s chest. “They think it’s weird, a boy who bakes. But they still like the way it tastes, so no one actually gets upset about it.”

“It’s not weird,” Jack said.

Bitty pulled back a fraction so he could look Jack in the face.

“It is, at least here,” he said. “Best not to draw too much attention.”

“No, I guess not,” Jack said, understanding only too well. “But Bitty -- this isn’t good for you. You know that, right? You should be where you can have all the attention you want. People should look at you, Bits, and they should see you, because you’re amazing.”

Jack leaned down and kissed Bitty gently, afraid to push the moment too much.

Bitty kissed back, then kissed Jack again for good measure.

“You too, sweet pea,” he said. “You too.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you liked it!  
> Come say hi on [Tumblr](http://www.tumblr.com/blog/justlookfrightened)!


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